um, no.
On both counts.
the 12 inch powerbook is not going away, not at all. Clearly, the 15 inch gets you a better laptop-more power, runs cooler, bigger screen, etc. But the 12 inch gives portability, and that is why people who buy the 12 buy it-it's the maximum in portability with a full fledged computer. Hear of the booming ultra portable market? people want portability, and 12 inches is as far as apple is willing to go on that. It's the minimum size they can make a computer with a full size keyboard, and that is exactly why it is 12 inches.
Second, why on EARTH would apple reduce it's portables to one line? notebooks now make up more than half of apple's sales, and I believe the world's, and sales keep on growing. Powerbooks and Ibooks sell well. Some people want the high end, some low, you can't get rid of that, don't shrink the lines. Apple doesn't like big numbers, for sure-dropped the ebook, but they really don't like one. The formula is, give the customers decisions between two or three things, then 2 or three more, as deep as you need to go, so at any point, it's not overwhealming. So, laptop, or desktop? Desktop? OK, then low, mid, or high? OK, mid. What size screen and speed on your imac, then? great, can I get you an ipod to go with?
But apple, no company, would ever reduce themselves to one line in a major, major portion of the market, when both lines sell well.
not to mention, they've held them apart even as the lack of processor advances have made it impossible to have a range of power. But soon comes intel, and we can have powerbook be power and ibook be budget again, why whould they stop that?
